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The Genomic Repairman is currently a Ph.D. student who escaped from the deep south, and studies DNA damage and repair through biochemical and genetic approaches. He intends to use pine away about his scientific interests and rant about the things (and there are lots of them) that annoy him.

My posts are presented as opinion and commentary and do not represent the views of LabSpaces Productions, LLC, my employer, or my educational institution.

So this is our theme post for the month of September and the topic was selected based upon polling the readers. Jokingly my first idea for the "I wish I knew.." was "I wish I knew my prom date was a filthy skank." So to shallowly delve into this story, lets take it back to high school days.

I wish I knew my prom date was a filthy skankSixteen year old Genomic Repairman was a nerdy kid who felt awkward in his own skin but was also somehow a two sport athlete (Baseball/Football). The prospects for me getting laid in high school were pretty much slim to fucking none as I was friends with many hot girls but could never seem to get out of the dreaded friend zone. So anywho not to beleaguer my pitiful adolescent love life, I ended up asking this gorgeous popular girl who was a fairly new student at our school to prom. There was no way she should have even considered my question. I mean this was like a 4 asking out a 9 on the dating scale, but she said yes. So fast forward to prom, I see my date hugging for just a little to long and chatting it updamn near every dude on the basketball and soccer team. Finally one of my platonic female friends who trapped me in the friend zone at an early age filled me in on the scoop. Apparently my prom date blew the basketball team after a game, THE ENTIRE FUCKING TEAM. I think I ended up ditching her that night and going to some parties with the rest of my friends. I say I think because I got so drunk I slept in someone's parents bathtub that night with a box of Captain Crunch and a blanket. Why the fuck would you sleep in a bathtub with Captain Crunch and a blanket?

"I eat your cereal bitch!"

Simple, I didn't want to throw up in someone's bed, I was hungry, and if you have been in a bathtub for any length of time, its cold. En Fin.

Moving on, lets get to the first of my two real "I wish I knew" posts.

I wish I knew my I wasn't going to get paidSo this sort of ties into another of the topics in that pole, what you would be doing if you weren't doing science. Basically I worked a crazy amount of fucking jobs (managing a county park, previously mentioned biotech experience, TA, tutor, Christmas tree salesman, etc) in order to put myself through undergrad as my parent's didn't really have the funds to pay for it and had to take care of my sibling who had a mild learning disability that required a shit ton of tutoring and specialists. One of these jobs, was working on shrimping and fishing boats. This was good money and I loved being outdoors. I worked my way up from just unloading the catch at the dock in high school to working on the boat and eventually getting a captain's license to help run the boat. But lets flash forward to my master's program at an academic medical center, I picked a lab that I really like and had a boss who was going to ostensibly pay me out of grant funds. Unfortunately, he had a resident in his lab whose stipend the department was supposed to pick up during their tenure in the lab. They did not, guess whose money went away two months into their stint in the lab to cover the resident. That's right, me. My boss looked genuinely saddened by what happened and his hand was forced by the department as the resident was their priority not a graduate student. So guess who went right to work on the boat while holding down classes and more than 40 hours a week of research in the lab.

Ahoy Motherfuckers, here be me place of moonlighting employment...

Luckily, I got an instructor position teaching labs at night at the nearby local university to help cover my tuition and fees. But it was my fishing job that gave me money to live on and survive through graduate school. So for almost a year and a half, all of my lab work (n>50 hours) got crammed into Monday through Thursday and I also taught three nights out of the week. Pretty much Friday to Sunday was spent in some capacity working at the boat or the dock. Was it rough? Fuck yes. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. Although this created issues when somehow the Dean of Graduate studies got wind of my outside employment and verbally forbade me to work in his office. I ignored his verbal upbraiding and figured that he can't fucking audit my tax returns so how would he know about my work schedule. And also my boss was cool with me working as he understood that I had to pay the bills. The end result, I got my M.S., a second author, a third author, and a buried in the middle of the list publication in some good journals in just two years in the lab. My boss was always gracious for my work and was able to hire me on as a technician as soon as I graduated since the department would cover the cost of a technician for him. And he let me bill them for a fuck ton of overtime in the few months that I had that job before moving onto my Ph.D. program.

Okay and lets roll on to the last "I wish I knew"

I wish I knew how much I'd learn about the people and the world...During the course of my graduate studies I have been lucky enough to cross paths with people from all across the globe. I worked with damn near every nationality, I've come to blows with a Rhodesian, shared a humble meal of couscous with a Moroccan, dying laughing as my Ruspanic coworker sung "Who Let The Dogs Out", chugged Newcastles with a Geordie, slide tackled an Egyptian, broke up a fist fight between an Israeli and a Palestinian, got my ass beat by a Canadian, watched my Indian buddy Ajax beatboxing to a room full of professors, and been puked on by a Japanese friend who was so pickled from sake that he pissed in the trunk of his own car. This is one of the greatest gifts that working in science affords you. You'll meet a ton of people who have walked from many different lands and possess a cornucopia of views on everything from DNA isolation to the meaning of life. Take the time out to have a meal or a drink with them as the dinner table or the bar stool is the great equalizer of society.

The purveyor of peace and harmony, or just a hangover?

We are all so different yet when we come together for that fleeting moment in time, everything is right and good in the world. These are the moments and interpersonal relationships that make a career in science more than just the science. They are to be treasured and seized upon. So the next time you see that foreign postdoc who barely speaks a lick of English, drag that motherfucker to your local pub and do some damage. Or if that postdoc offers you some of his wife's homecooking, no matter how bad it looks or vile it smells try it. Food is the most sincere form of hospitality, so choke it down if you have to. It will be personally rewarding and professionally invaluable.

Now, I wish I knew how to make you guys go fuck off and read someone else's post...

The cultural diversity in labs is probably one of the most incredible but oft overlooked things. It's really interesting to learn about differences in customs and personalities created by different cultures. Plus it can be a boatload of fun teaching American slang and colloquialisms to international trainees... and sometimes to fellow Americans, because one thing you realize after hanging out with an international crowd of scientists is just how friggin' huge and diverse the U.S. can be.

Research training introduced me to the joys of homemade Indian food. After bad restaurant experiences, I learned how to seek out the good stuff. We had a Chinese Post-doc whose English was problematic. My techs hooked her up with an old VCR (this was a few years back) and sent her home with movies every day. Her English improved rapidly, and the fact that the first 3 flicks were the original Star Wars series did not end up being problematic.

Pascale at work we do ethnic potlucks every so often and it is amazing, I mean there is a line outside the door. Its just one thing we get to enjoy that people in "normal" workplaces that don't have because there is not as much workplace diversity.

I never would try any Indian, Thai, etc food until I started graduate school...can't believe what I was missing, not to mention getting to know so much about other cultures. If only more people in this country could find a way to open their minds. Grad school seems to be the cure for all kinds of ignorance...

Sucks about the master's degree drama. It just made you a stronger person and probably provided you with great life experiences we all wish we could have had at that time.

I wouldn't call my previous labs diverse. My undergrad labs were all white people, and my grad school lab was all chinese people. Now my lab consists of me, my not very Jamaican technician, and my Indian technician. The other lab (the one associated with the core I run) has 3 Chinese people, a Cajun, two Germans and then 3 white undergrads. So I guess I'm much more cultured now. I wish they'd bring me some ethnic food!